Someone Has Confused His Rage for This Woman’s Only Life
Gender Characteristics Which Distinguish Women:
- lunar cycle
- estrogen influence:Â puberty, sex drive, child birth, menopause
- physiology:Â breasts, hips, vagina, hair
- socialized to privilege appearance
- socialized to “be taken care of†by a male figure: father/husband/boss
- prone to specific diseases:Â eating disorders, Lupus, gynecological disorders, breast cancer
Common Lables Used to Describe Women
| slut | coquette |
| whore | tease |
| bitch | vamp |
| dyke | flirt |
| witch | trifler |
| courtesan | hoyden |
| demimonde | cunt |
| demimondaine | siren |
| prostitute | prick tease |
| wench | cock tease |
| harlot | gold-digger |
| strumpet | wanton |
| demirep | battle-ax |
| trollop | hag |
| slattern | crone |
| Jezebel | freak |
| hussy | ball and chain |
| hooker | nympho |
| tramp | hex |
| coutesan | old maid |
| cocotte | beldam |
| lez/lesbian/lesbo | bag |
| vixen | bat |
| skeezer | gorgon |
| Miss Priss | hellcat |
| harridan | scamp |
| cow | cow |
| Pollyanna | Jewish Princess |
| mofo/mother | diva |
| old lady |
62 words compose this incomplete list. What commonalties do you observe?
How many words of similar connotation can you catalogue to describe men?
What sense do you make of your results?
Gender Questions for Women:
- How does being a woman affect identity?
- How does being a woman affect social status?
- How does being a woman affect employment?
- How does being a woman affect proximity to/in violence?
- How does being a woman affect political power/affiliation?
- How does being a woman affect empowerment?
- How does being a woman affect higher education status?
- How does gender affect voice?
- How does gender affect credibility?
- How does gender affect sexual identity/role?
- How does the mass media portray women?
- How does literature represent women?
- Do women share a common culture? If so what are its characteristics?
Another Woman
Today another woman died
and not on a foreign field
and not with a rifle strapped to her back,
and not with a large defense of tanks
rumbling and rolling behind her.
She died without CNN covering her war.
She died without talk of intelligent bombs
and strategic targets.
The target was simply her face, her back
her pregnant belly.
The target was her precious flesh
that was once composed like music
in her mother’s body and sung
in the anthem of birth.
The target was this life
that had lived its own dear wildness,
had been loved and not loved,
had danced and not danced.
A life like yours or mine
that had stumbled up
from a beginning
and had learned to walk
and had learned to read
and had learned to sing.
Another woman died today.
not far from where you live;
Just there, next door where the tall light
falls across the pavement.
Just there, a few steps away
where you’ve often heard shouting,
Another woman died today.
She was the same girl
her mother used to kiss;
the same child you dreamed
beside in school.
The same baby her parents
walked in the night with
and listened and listened and listened
For her cries even while they slept.
And someone has confused his rage
with this woman’s only life.
-Carol Geneya Kaplan
I am another woman, though I did not die that day…
I am a lunar creature; I quicken life within me…
I am a woman…
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah!
I can always look to your blog to reconnect with that deep deep strength and beauty that is being a woman. We, or at least I feel like I am socialized to discount my nature and feelings to make men more comfortable, just something that came up for me when I was reading. I find that interesting, this denial of our selves. Our life struggles and natural urges reduced to name calling, it makes it more comfortable and simple to respond this way to something we don’t understand, I feel. Just something to add, perhaps unrelated, but something that came up for me while reading your blog and made me think. I live in NYC and often walk very fast, in part for safety (” I am strong and quick, so don’t even try it!”) and in part because I just have somewhere to be. I get stares and cattle calls in my neighborhood, but not to an extreme unless I am wearing my jogging out fit. Well recently I injured my foot due to running too much, a lesson in and of itself, but I digress. Anyways, the doctor has said I need to wear heels, which slow me down, to take the pressure off the back of my
foot. So lets just say I am clearly injured, limping slowly in these damn heels and boy oh boy apparently I have become the sexiest, hottest, most sought after woman in Harlem, or well, anywhere it seems. The train, Harold Square, you name it. So I never got that intense attention before, so it made me think how interesting it was that now that I appear weaker, slower, more vulnerable, I am being targeted by men as a sex object. Huh, who knew a limp could be so hot? Just something that toggled my switch as of late. I cant wait to read more. Thank you for letting me share.